Thanks to all for your inspirational support.  We made it home yesterday 16 hours 40 mins after leaving Glenbrittle; 12 hours 10 mins on the bike.

Thank you on behalf of the team and NASS

 

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My name is Paul Sheerin, I work for Polaroid Eyewear based in our Dumbarton, UK facility.

 

On June 5^th myself and four friends will attempt to cycle from Glenbrittle Youth Hostel in Skye to Glasgow in one day (route above).  A distance of almost 195 miles, plus nearly 10,000 feet of ascents,  it makes it a challenge which to be honest its not a certainty we will achieve.

 

So why?  Well, in 1962, my father, at the peak of his cycling fitness achieved this feat, and whilst he has always been very modest about it, it’s been a marker of achievement which has been at the back of my mind for some time.  Last autumn I broke my leg playing rugby and was looking for a way to get my leg back to full fitness and this seemed like the ideal solution.

 

And then I started training….   I had no idea how hard cycling 80 miles in the freezing winter would be!  On one of my January runs, not only did crash my bike on the ice, but when I stopped for a consolatory drink of water my water-bottle had frozen solid.  More details of training fun to follow here in the run up to the event.

 

My colleagues and friends who will be joining me are Eric Boinard (keen but amateur ride-to-worker like me) and Bennie e Jong (proper mega mile cyclist based in the Netherlands), Dave Ashton (more of a mountain terroriser than roads before this) and Craford Taylor (another proper cyclist with many miles and cycling experience under his belt). 

 

In all honesty, this trip is about the challenge and (hopefully) having a beer with my Dad and saying ‘yes, I see what you mean, that wasn’t easy’.  But many people have asked me if I will use the chance to raise some money for charity, and as a result I have chosen the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society charity which gives practical help and advice to people who suffer from this condition.  Ankylosing Spondylitis is an inherited form of arthritis which affects mainly the spine, and  I chose this as my father has had the condition since his late 20s and has severely curtailed the cycling he loves.

 

 

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